Friday, July 21, 2006
... Wouldn't You Like to Be a Patron Too?
Before last spring, I hadn't had a real, patron-ish library card for over 10 years. (The whole no-fines-on-staff-cards arrangement made this a no-brainer!) So, one of my first orders of business when quitting my day job last year was to go and purchase a card. I'm in an unincorporated area not served by a library district, so get to choose from several nearby options.
Last year, I bought a card at the library in the town closest to where I live. (Which, although it's a very nice library, needs to pass a referendum -- the place is bursting at the seams, and I wish I did live there so I could vote.) This year, I did a little shopping around, and spent $80 more to buy a card at a library 5 minutes further away, but with a much larger collection -- and no fees to check out DVDs, which serves a certain Elmo-loving small person well. I love this library, although I'm experiencing a certain guilt from voting with my feet in this way.
It's also been really interesting to experience public library service from the other end.
For instance: When I worked in a public library, we could never understand how patrons could repeatedly lose library cards or leave them at home. My new library card has been through the wash twice since I got it in April, and needs another new name sticker right now. When we go to the library as a family on Saturday mornings, my husband drives, and I don't often carry a purse since I don't need my license. So, the card gets stuck in a pocket (hence the washer issue). When I get home, it tends to get left on a counter, buried under mail, knocked on the floor... yes, I'm ashamed, revoke my ALA membership right now. I've spent a good 30 minutes looking for the card while my family taps their feet impatiently by the door.
Then, there's my new library pet peeve: the receipt printout system. Rather than due date cards in each item, I get a printed receipt of all the items I check out on a given date, with all of their due dates. This is useless to me. I generally have 40+ items out at any given time, renew items online, ILL items often, and visit the library at least weekly. The nice circulation people gave me a handy little refrigerator magnet to hold the receipts, but I just throw them away and instead check my online account obsessively. Once, the ILS was down right before a library visit. Chaos ensued.
I was also amazed at my own reluctance to approach a public service desk when needing help a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure if I was frustrated that I couldn't "do it myself" because I've been accustomed to doing so for so long, but it made me a bit more sympathetic to all the people who were reluctant to approach the reference desk where I worked. The readers services people couldn't have been friendlier, but I found myself using IM the next time I had a question -- and I'm not even a teen.
We talk about not putting up unecessary barriers for patrons -- along these lines, I think that we need to make a habit of using our libraries as patrons, and I wish I'd done so before.
Last year, I bought a card at the library in the town closest to where I live. (Which, although it's a very nice library, needs to pass a referendum -- the place is bursting at the seams, and I wish I did live there so I could vote.) This year, I did a little shopping around, and spent $80 more to buy a card at a library 5 minutes further away, but with a much larger collection -- and no fees to check out DVDs, which serves a certain Elmo-loving small person well. I love this library, although I'm experiencing a certain guilt from voting with my feet in this way.
It's also been really interesting to experience public library service from the other end.
For instance: When I worked in a public library, we could never understand how patrons could repeatedly lose library cards or leave them at home. My new library card has been through the wash twice since I got it in April, and needs another new name sticker right now. When we go to the library as a family on Saturday mornings, my husband drives, and I don't often carry a purse since I don't need my license. So, the card gets stuck in a pocket (hence the washer issue). When I get home, it tends to get left on a counter, buried under mail, knocked on the floor... yes, I'm ashamed, revoke my ALA membership right now. I've spent a good 30 minutes looking for the card while my family taps their feet impatiently by the door.
Then, there's my new library pet peeve: the receipt printout system. Rather than due date cards in each item, I get a printed receipt of all the items I check out on a given date, with all of their due dates. This is useless to me. I generally have 40+ items out at any given time, renew items online, ILL items often, and visit the library at least weekly. The nice circulation people gave me a handy little refrigerator magnet to hold the receipts, but I just throw them away and instead check my online account obsessively. Once, the ILS was down right before a library visit. Chaos ensued.
I was also amazed at my own reluctance to approach a public service desk when needing help a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure if I was frustrated that I couldn't "do it myself" because I've been accustomed to doing so for so long, but it made me a bit more sympathetic to all the people who were reluctant to approach the reference desk where I worked. The readers services people couldn't have been friendlier, but I found myself using IM the next time I had a question -- and I'm not even a teen.
We talk about not putting up unecessary barriers for patrons -- along these lines, I think that we need to make a habit of using our libraries as patrons, and I wish I'd done so before.
Comments:
Links to this post:
<< Home
I do need to go back to Library ELF -- I had it set up on my old account but haven't gotten around to it this time. Thanks for the reminder!
/...spent $80 more to buy a
/card at a library 5 minutes
/further away
They charge $80 for a non-resident card? Good lord! We charge $25, and there are a lot of ways to get around that!
/and no fees to check out DVDs
I wasn't aware that any libraries charged money to check out DVDs - that's terrible! We treat ours like any other item, though the fine is a bit higher and the loan period is only a week. We have 2,200 DVDs in a town of 25,000 people, and rarely have any problem getting them back.
- Jesse
/card at a library 5 minutes
/further away
They charge $80 for a non-resident card? Good lord! We charge $25, and there are a lot of ways to get around that!
/and no fees to check out DVDs
I wasn't aware that any libraries charged money to check out DVDs - that's terrible! We treat ours like any other item, though the fine is a bit higher and the loan period is only a week. We have 2,200 DVDs in a town of 25,000 people, and rarely have any problem getting them back.
- Jesse
Jesse - Note that says: $80 MORE than last year. My ex-library charged me $112, my current library $200... when looking at area libraries, I got ranges from $112 to $285 to "We don't give nonresidents cards at any price."
A number of libraries around here charge for DVDs, or charge $1-2/day overdue fines as opposed to the $.10-.15 for books. I think this very much depends on the area, and it doesn't make sense to me to treat these materials differently, either, esp. now that collections have been built up such that audiovisual media aren't so much a rarity.
Post a Comment
A number of libraries around here charge for DVDs, or charge $1-2/day overdue fines as opposed to the $.10-.15 for books. I think this very much depends on the area, and it doesn't make sense to me to treat these materials differently, either, esp. now that collections have been built up such that audiovisual media aren't so much a rarity.
Links to this post:
<< Home
